Subsurface operations in many industries require the use of cutting tools to drill or mill (or similar) through earthen formations or in some cases through man-made additions to those formations such as concrete. Such cutting tools and their manufacture are generally machining intensive thereby making them relatively expensive to produce. Machining is required because upsets are usually desirable with respect to such cutting tools to allow cuttings to move out of the immediate location of abrasive or cutting action, usually under the influence of a cutting fluid. In order to create such upsets, a generally accepted and ubiquitously used method is to start with a larger blank material and machine away excess material. Such excess material becomes scrap and is therefore a material cost over and above the cost of machining the material in the first place.
In order to complete the manufacture of the cutting tools it is common practice to bond a high strength metal alloy material to the surface of a machined base material. This process requires a substantial amount of heat that regularly produces small cracks in the base material during the process. Cracks are problematic, as they often need to be addressed in a process that unfortunately also requires a substantial amount of heat. And further, while every effort is made to identify and address cracks in specific tools, some inevitably get through the screening process leading to breakage when put to use.
In view of the foregoing, the art will well receive improved technology with respect to cutting tools production and durability.